21–30 of 176 posts
In Asia it is called marshrutka. It is amazing to see how US reinvents wheel and gives it cool names.
> In Asia it is called ...
So a few billions of people, speaking a multitude of languages, all use the same name for a concept? How nice!
I think about Berlin and how you can get just about anywhere on the tram system, and if you are well behaved your trip could be, well, free.. [0]
[0] https://www.nomadenberlin.com/blog2/public-transport-in-berl....
Via-shuttle is available in the SF Bay Area: https://www.cupertino.org/our-city/departments/public-works/...
It picks up people and takes them to the closest light rail station or takes them home from the station. It has a fixed radius of operation and typically there are 2-5 people in the van. It is a feeder system to bring riders to light rail trains.
It was semi-on-demand, and not door-to-door.
The scheme was, you called the DART line (from your land-line, obviously) and gave your address, and there was a mini-bus that made the rounds of the residential neighborhood, which would come to your address on its next round. It would then take you to the local transit junction point, a nearby shopping mall with several bus bays where a number of regular bus routes converged, and you would make your connection and complete your journey in the regular way.
It seemed to me to be a reasonable way of efficiently delivering infrequent transit service to a large area, although I personally only used it a couple of times to visiit a friend.
Aren’t these just subsidized taxis? They don’t help with congestion, they don’t help with pollution, I don’t see how they ultimately bring down costs since you still need individual cars and drivers... Perhaps in some limited cases, multiple people going the same way at the same time can share a vehicle, but how often will that work out in practice? I basically never end up sharing an Uber/Lyft with anyone else despi…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Cities have the demand to support real transit which is vastly more cost and energy efficient. They have congestion which isn't helped much by shuttles compared to a bus or other high capacity transit. Congestion also slows the shuttle down so you need more shuttles and more depots. They also have more destinations at cyclable distances. Paratransit is for mobility for theose who can't drive in areas that can't justi…
> They have congestion which isn't helped much by shuttles compared to a bus or other high capacity transit Multiple simultaneously driving taxis can be replaced by one shuttle van at times or for routes where large busses would run mostly empty, because they lack flexibility.
I guess they are useful in some US cities as a stepping stone where there are massive political and legislative barriers to building a functional city.
We had something like this in the exurbs of Calgary in the 1970s, it was called "DART", for "Dial-A-Ride Transit". It was semi-on-demand, and not door-to-door. The scheme was, you called the DART line (from your land-line, obviously) and gave your address, and there was a mini-bus that made the rounds of the residential neighborhood, which would come to your address on its next round. It would then take you to the lo…
Aren’t these just subsidized taxis? They don’t help with congestion, they don’t help with pollution, I don’t see how they ultimately bring down costs since you still need individual cars and drivers... Perhaps in some limited cases, multiple people going the same way at the same time can share a vehicle, but how often will that work out in practice? I basically never end up sharing an Uber/Lyft with anyone else despi…
> They don’t help with congestion, they don’t help with pollution, So what? The first and only point of a public transport system is, you know, transporting people. Limiting congestion and pollution comes very far in terms of priority, and only once the core mission is fulfilled.
Aren’t these just subsidized taxis? They don’t help with congestion, they don’t help with pollution, I don’t see how they ultimately bring down costs since you still need individual cars and drivers... Perhaps in some limited cases, multiple people going the same way at the same time can share a vehicle, but how often will that work out in practice? I basically never end up sharing an Uber/Lyft with anyone else despi…
> They don’t help with congestion, they don’t help with pollution, So what? The first and only point of a public transport system is, you know, transporting people. Limiting congestion and pollution comes very far in terms of priority, and only once the core mission is fulfilled.